College Baseball’s Best Pitching Prospect Performances (2/19/11 and 2/20/11)

Southern Cal JR RHP Austin Wood (2011): 5 IP 6 H 2 ER 1 BB 6 K

LSU FR RHP Kevin Gausman (2012): 5.2 IP 6 H 2 ER 0 BB 6 K

Georgia Tech FR RHP DeAndre Smelter (2013): 1.1 IP 0 H 0 ER 0 BB 2 K

San Diego FR RHP Dylan Covey (2013): 7 IP 7 H 4 ER 2 BB 7 K

UCLA FR RHP Adam Plutko (2013): 6 IP 2 H 0 ER 1 BB 4 K

Florida FR RHP Karsten Whitson (2013): 5 IP 1 H 0 ER 1 BB 9 K

Six really successful major college debuts for six outstanding prospects. It is a little funny to me that the most college ready freshman, Dylan Covey, had the least successful of the freshman quintet. Gausman, Smelter, and Whitson are similar in the way each can dial up mid-90s fastballs to pair with their potential plus power breaking balls (curve for Gausman, sliders for Smelter and Whitson). In any other year Austin Wood would be getting all kinds of high first round buzz; as is, he’s lost in the shuffle of the many more established 2011 college pitching stars.

Wood’s debut may have been the biggest of any junior transfer prospect, but it only seems right to turn the spotlight on the first major college game pitched by Bryan Harper, Bryce’s older brother and former teammate. After all the Bryce Hype of 2010, let the Year of Bryan begin! McHenry also made his debut and, while I can’t pretend to know much about him as a prospect, his debut really impressed me. What can I say, I’m a sucker for multi-inning saves…

TCU JR RHP Kyle Winkler (2011): 7 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 8 K

UCLA JR RHP Trevor Bauer (2011): 7.2 IP 2 H 0 ER 4 BB 10 K

It is unbelievable to me that these two are number two starters on their college teams. Easy prediction that has already begun to come to fruition: Trevor Bauer will be one of 2011’s most divisive draft prospects.

Liberty SO RHP Blake Forslund (2011): 4 IP 6 H 5 ER 4 BB 5 K

Arizona JR RHP Kyle Simon (2011): 7.2 IP 1 H 1 ER 0 BB 13 K

Arizona SO RHP Kurt Heyer (2012): 7 IP 5 H 0 ER 2 BB 8 K

Simon’s sinker, slider, splitter repertoire must have been really working for him…

Wichita State JR LHP Charlie Lowell (2011): 5 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 7 K

Oklahoma State SO LHP Andrew Heaney (2012): 7 IP 2 H 0 ER 1 BB 8 K

Lowell, like Austin Wood, is another prospect that would get a lot more love in a less stacked draft class. Another lefty with plus velocity? Yawn…

Clemson SO RHP Kevin Brady (2011): 5.1 IP 2 H 1 ER 1 BB 10 K

Mississippi JR RHP David Goforth (2011): 7 IP 5 H 0 ER 1 BB 5 K

Oregon JR RHP Madison Boer (2011): 8 IP 1 H 0 ER 2 BB 7 K

For all the great 2011 college pitching available this June, there doesn’t appear to be a high number of high round reliever follows out there. I’ve never been good at predicting which college starting pitchers pro teams will prefer as relievers, but these three seem like prime candidates to make the move to the pen at some point. We’ll see…

On a good day, Hill has three above-average pitches. He’s Vanderbilt’s fifth best pitching prospect. Vanderbilt is really good. Great to see Cropper healthy and throwing so well…

Cal State Fullerton JR RHP Noe Ramirez (2011): 7 IP 6 H 1 ER 0 BB 5 K

Vanderbilt JR LHP Grayson Garvin (2011): 8.1 IP 5 H 2 ER 0 BB 10 K

Kentucky JR RHP Alex Meyer (2011): 7 IP 3 H 2 ER 3 BB 13 K

Broken record alert! Any other year, these three are first round locks and Meyer would be considered as close to a top ten guarantee as possible. It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that a team like Washington, picking 6th overall and 1st in the supplemental first (34th overall) could walk away from the draft with two potential quick moving top of the rotation starting pitching prospects (Sonny Gray and Alex Meyer, for example)…

Texas A&M SO RHP Michael Wacha (2012): 6 IP 5 H 0 ER 0 BB 7 K

Texas SO LHP Hoby Milner (2012): 7 IP 2 H 0 ER 2 BB 10 K

Which 2012 pitching prospect from the great state of Texas do you prefer? The high velocity righthander? Or the lefty with the deeper all-around arsenal?

5 Comments

John McCambridge, Xavier, Captain, is scheduled to go in the 10th round to Minnesota. He is a Top 50 outfielder……he is ranked way to low. NY and Boston know about his 4.5 tools going to 5 tool abilities. His resume is littered with records. I remember a guy going in the 3rd round to the Pittsburgh Steelers…..he always did it in college……then he was traded to the New England Patriots. his name was Mike Vrabel. He could just flat play, was drafted to low, and now has 3 rings……John McCambridge is that type of leader, player, and producer. get with the program and get this player up into the top 3 rounds.

Hey Randy, love the cross-spot comp of McCambridge to Vrabel. I actually agree that McCambridge’s outstanding makeup will help him in pro ball, as I think it does for any player faced with the uphill battle of being a late round draft pick. Not sure I agree on him being a potential top 10 round candidate, but we’ll have to wait and see on that one. He ranked in the 90s on my college outfielder last year and, as of this moment, will rank in the same range here in 2011. We talked a bit about him last year and I think what I said then still holds up:

I thought I might have been underselling McCambridge a bit, and you make a nice case in favor of him here. My biggest question is with his eventual power upside. For me, he’s got a long way to go in that department before I could really consider him anything more than a guy with fourth OF upside. There’s value there, of course, and that’s part of the reason why McCambridge made the list over some of the close calls that just missed.